Chef Andrew is an unabashed fan of asparagus. In his professional opinion it’s the best vegetable in the garden. “When cooked correctly it’s sweet, grassy, nutty and sometimes even buttery. The problem people have with asparagus is that they don’t prepare it correctly so they end up with either woody, overcooked asparagus that’s hard to chew or bland, underseasoned mushy asparagus.” Chef Andrew joins us with his best tips on properly cooking and preparing asparagus.
SoCal Restaurant Show
Ask the Chef with Co-Host Chef Andrew Gruel of Calico Fish House
Hi, I'm Carla Hall of ABC's The Chew. You're listening to The SoCal Restaurant Show on AM/830KLAA. What do you do? And welcome back. Sadly, it is the concluding segment of The SoCal Restaurant Show. But the better news is, is we're going to be right back here with you next Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon right here on AM/830KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AM/830 Angels app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. And at this point in the show, it is always fun for me to bring back my co-host, Chef Andrew Grull of the Calico Fish House in the Sunset Beach area of Huntington Beach on the Pacific Coast Highway. Chef Andrew, good morning and welcome back to your show. Good morning. It's great to be back. Thank you. And I think we should mention that we are enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. Chef Andrew, we've had what is thought of as the unofficial conclusion of the summer last weekend, Labor Day weekend. I am sure that it was a mad house in Huntington Beach because boy, Huntington Beach, the beach, the water, you're like a block away. Good weekend, Chef? Oh, it was a great weekend. Everybody's coming down to get that last little bit of summer before all the kids go back to school. Now, Chef Andrew for the summer because I know it probably changes seasonally, but for the summer, what is your most popular dish? Well, it's either any of the simply grilled fish, which is a changing menu of fish that we get in daily or the lobster roll. I mean, that one always picks the top. And we talked about lobster roll last Saturday, so that is definitely a good mention. Now, Chef Andrew, in your culinary career, you are way ahead of yourself because you never neglected the vegetables. They were always important in more recent years. They've moved more towards the center of the plate with you, which is a good thing. But what I don't think our listeners know is you have a particularly favorite vegetable that people love. I love it. But in terms of doing it in the home kitchen, not always done successfully. So on your American gravy sub stack area, you now have kind of demystified all of that. And of course, we will direct our listeners there after our conversation. But give us a little preview of this vegetable and what the do's and don'ts are to having it perfect. Excellent. I am a huge fan of a spare gift. And there's so many different types of asparagus. The specific type of asparagus that I love cooking, especially this time of year are those big, big jumbo jumbo asparagus, the ones that are nice and fat. Now, pencil asparagus, which is a small, thin asparagus, those are just as delicious. The only difference with those is that with those, I don't peel them, right? So with the biggest asparagus, I cut the ends off where they get really woody, about two to three inches up the stalk. And what people traditionally do is that they actually, with the big, vatasparagus, they cut them almost halfway down thinking they can't use the area of the asparagus where the dark greens start to lighten up. You really only want to cut those biggest asparagus where it turns white. Above that, it's all edible and it's actually delicious. It's got that rich, meaty interior. So what I like to do is I take those largest asparagus, I cut them of one or two inches at the bottom, as I said, the indicator as the color turns from that kind of green to light green, and then once it goes to the white, you cut it there. But you can peel about halfway up the stalk from the base of where you've cut halfway up to where it's a darker green, just around the asparagus. And you want to peel it lightly, you don't whittle them down, really just, you're peeling it so that you get a nice bite out of it. And that's the key to preparing the asparagus. With the pencil asparagus, as mentioned, you'll do the same cutting, you just won't peel them. And then what I like to do is I'll take a pot of boiling water, aggressively boiling. You want it boiling really hard with a lot of salt in there. I typically do one cup of salt to one gallon of water. I mean, salty as you see is what they say. Now, what that salt is doing is two things. Number one, it's seasoning the asparagus all the way through the inside and out. If you season it only after you cook it, you're really only getting the salt on the exterior. You're not seasoning and amplifying those flavors all the way throughout. But the salt also draws a lot of the chlorophyll out of the asparagus. And after boiling the asparagus for a minute or two, you're going to shock it and it keeps it that nice, beautiful, bright green. So the key is, right, you do the proper trim, you peel the asparagus properly. And then you drop them in boiling heavily salted water. You let them boil for about 60 seconds, maybe 90 seconds, depending on how you like them done. And then you pull them out and put them in a bowl of ice water. Stop the cooking. And this is where the fun begins, because it's almost similar to my preparation on meat where I do this kind of reverse sear. And I start by cooking the meat in a slow, low oven. And then I finish it over high with butter and sauces and seasonings. And the same applies to these big asparagus. And actually, this technique can really apply to a lot of green vegetables, broccoli as well, zucchini, summer zucchini, you name it. But you'll shock them and then you'll just wait for the temperature to cool down on the asparagus, because you don't want them to keep cooking. You don't leave them in the water for too long. Because what happens when you leave them in the water for too long is some of the flavor actually starts to reach out in the water. So the purpose of that water bath, that ice water bath is really just to stop the cooking. Once the cooking is stopped, you pull them out, you want to dry them, put them on a plate for towel, get them really super dry. And then you can either blast your grill, or you can get a pan going really hot. If you're cooking on the grill, I personally like to rub my asparagus down with a little bit of piece callow, which is just clarified beef fat. You can buy it in jars at the store, or you can even get it in larger quantities online in little buckets. It's a wonderful item to cook with in terms of a fat. It's also pretty healthy for you, contrary to years of wisdom that beef fat isn't good for you, it is. The rub down is essential. If you're going to grill them, if you're cooking asparagus in a pan, you can actually put avocado oil, a beef callow, or even ghee, which is clarified butter in the pan. Don't use the whole butter yet because we want to get the pan or the grill up to a high heat. And as I've mentioned in the past, when you're cooking over high high heat, you don't use the whole butter because those milk solids can burn. You want to use the clarified butter, also known as beef, which is just butter that's been clarified in the milk solids and the moisture has been cooked out. So at that point, whether you've rubbed it or put some oil or fat in a pan, you wait for it to get really hot, almost smoking hot, and you throw the asparagus in the pan or you put it on the grill, and you're only going to cook it now for probably 30 to 60 seconds. You're really curing the exterior or grilling the exterior. You're allowing that caramelization to occur on the asparagus. If you're on the grill, you're getting that nice, quick smoking hit on the grill. You're doing after about 60 seconds, pull it, and then at that point, you can finish it. If it's in the pan, you can turn the pan off the heat, and you can throw a knob of whole butter in there. Herbs, a little bit of lemon zest, lemon juice, any of the spices you like. I love a little chili pepper on there or a leto pepper. It gives it that spicy smokiness. Some people even like to do a mango arugula salad over the asparagus. This is where you can have fun. Spargus also goes really well with cured pork fat, prosciutto, spec, even mortigella is great on the asparagus. A little bit of that kind of salty protein within the asparagus at the end, but this is where you have fun. I am just a glutton for fresh mozzarella and some of these beautiful summer tomatoes on the asparagus with a little bit of the prosciutto, but it's up to you. The key is preparing the asparagus properly. Then it's really a nice and pork dish. That's how rich and elegant I consider the asparagus when it comes to cooking it in this manner. Chef Andrew, excellent tutorial. As you say in the sub-stack piece for American gravy, when it is cooked correctly, it's sweet, grassy, nutty, and of course you're getting that buttery flavor. In about 20 seconds, Chef Andrew, if you could, how do they find the video on American gravy? Well, you can just go to sub-stack and search up American gravy or Andrew Cool. You can also go to my YouTube page, which is that Chef Rule, my Rumble page at American gravy. On all of those platforms, I post the videos, the recipes, and little tidbits of information in between. Chef Andrew, thank you. That's where we're going to leave it, and we'll pick up the conversation next week. Food fans, that's our show. A tip of the toke to my co-host, Chef Andrew Grulle. Also, my thanks to Derek here at Angel Stadium and Technical Excellence. Kudos also to Adam Bell on social media. Next week, we're right back here with a fresh show. We're proudly presented by Melissa Rufrecht, produce, and West Coast Prime Meats. Doctor in the dugout with Alan Beyer, MD, to fix the field. Next, be safe, good, easy. [Music]